she said YES on Valentine’s Day ????

A photo posted by Taylor Kinney (@taylorkinney11) on Feb 16, 2015 at 3:23pm PST

If you’re wondering why Lady Gaga seems a little bit extra this week, it’s because she’s going to be performing at the Oscars on Sunday. She’s doing some advanced promotion, I guess. And just my opinion: I think Gaga is in the midst of a rebranding. She’s done the crazy Mother Monster. She’s done the coked-out diva mess. She’s worn the faux cheekbones and she got all the mileage she could get out of her weight fluctuations. Her current incarnation is more old-school diva. It’s all about gowns, cleavage, Tony Bennett and diamonds.

Speaking of diamonds, we’re still talking about Gaga’s heart-shaped diamond engagement ring, given to her by her boyfriend of four years, Taylor Kinney. Some of you had questions about how Kinney could afford such a big diamond on his network-ensemble salary. Well, Us Weekly says that Gaga and Taylor went to Lorraine Schwartz together and Gaga had some input for what she wanted.

The creator of Gaga’s mega-sized heart-shaped diamond has been revealed. Lorraine Schwartz, the mastermind behind Kim Kardashian’s whopping 15-carat sparkler and Blake Lively’s massive oval diamond engagement ring, designed the Cheek to Cheek singer’s enormous heart-shaped rock.

Gaga and Kinney initially met with the celeb-loved jeweler in mid-January to shop around for rings. “Taylor has bought the engagement ring, he paid for it, and Lorraine Schwartz designed it,” a source told Us Weekly. “[Gaga] has been a major part of this whole process.”

The show-stopping quality doesn’t just stop with the sparkler. “The band is shaped with a T and S for their initials,” the source revealed.

[From Us Weekly]

Do you think the source is telling the truth about Kinney paying for it all by himself? I was also reading this article at Yahoo, which included an interview with a Sacramento jeweler who claimed that heart-shaped diamonds that size – it’s 15 carats!! – are very rare in the diamond market. The jeweler says “there are under 20 heart shaped diamonds between nine and 12 carats. That makes hers even more valuable.” The jeweler suggests that just the heart-shaped stone is probably worth $500,000. Whoa. Yeah, I don’t think Kinney paid for this all by himself. Maybe that was his intention, but when Gaga started telling Schwartz what she wanted, it got complicated.

As for the whole issue about a woman helping pick out her engagement ring – as I’ve always said, it’s an issue of practicality and I don’t hold it against men or women if the dude wants help in picking out the ring. In a perfect world, he would have excellent taste and he would know what would suit you perfectly. In the real world, the engagement ring is an important piece of jewelry and I don’t blame some women for wanting a say in what their ring looks like.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet and Instagram.